On July 21, 2011, the ACLU of Michigan group filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court Eastern District of Michigan under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The plaintiff asked the court for an injunction, claiming that the FBI was not timely in ...
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On July 21, 2011, the ACLU of Michigan group filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court Eastern District of Michigan under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The plaintiff asked the court for an injunction, claiming that the FBI was not timely in its response, and that information was improperly redacted from documents that were received.

On July 27, 2010, the ACLU of Michigan submitted a FOIA request to the FBI requesting documents pertaining to the use of race and ethnicity to conduct assessments and investigations. More than four months later on December 22, 2010, the FBI released the first batch of documents to the ACLU. The documents included duplicate pages that had been redacted and none were specific to Michigan or the Detroit Field Office. More documents were released on September 29, 2011 and October 31, 2011. The FBI claimed that the documents were released in a reasonable timeframe and that any information withheld was proper under exceptions to FOIA.

On September 30, 2012, the Court (Judge Lawrence P. Zatkoff) denied summary judgment for the ACLU and granted summary judgment for the FBI. The court found that the ACLU had not exhausted itsadministrative remedies and any information withheld by the FBI fell under the proper exceptions to FOIA.

On August 21, 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld the lower court's ruling. American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan v. F.B.I., 734 F.3d 460.